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Barry Diller officially – and finally – has the control he’s always wanted.

Delaware Chancery Court Judge Stephen Lamb yesterday ruled in favor of the IAC/InterActiveCorp boss in his contentious legal battle with friend-turned-foe John Malone of Liberty Media.

At the heart of the trial, which spanned five highly antagonistic days earlier this month, was whether Diller violated a proxy agreement that gives him control of Liberty’s 62 percent voting stake in IAC by proposing to spin off four of the company’s units with a single – instead of a dual – class of stock.

Malone alleged Diller’s proposal went against Liberty’s interests since it would slash by half its voting position. He also asked the court to nullify the proxy agreement with Diller and remove the mercurial mogul, his wife Diane von Furstenburg and other directors from IAC’s board.

Lamb disagreed, saying Liberty granted Diller an “irrevocable proxy.”

“Liberty has failed to demonstrate that Diller has breached or threatened to breach any contractual duty he owes to Liberty,” Lamb wrote in his decision. “In particular, the court rejects Liberty’s claim that the proposed single-tier spin-off ” has to be approved by Liberty first.

The ruling effectively gives Diller unfettered control of IAC and enables him to move forward with his spin-off plan, which would create four separate entities – HSN home-shopping network, Ticketmaster, Interval International and LendingTree. IAC would be left with Ask.com and Match.com.

Lamb also agreed with Diller’s assertion that no definitive decision regarding the structure of the spin-offs had been made yet and therefore declined to rule on the trial’s secondary issue of whether IAC’s board had violated its fiduciary duty.

“The simple, inescapable fact is that the IAC directors have not yet finally authorized the spin-off and have not even considered many of the essential terms of that transaction, including the voting structure of the spincos,” Lamb wrote.

Lamb reserved the right to issue a ruling on the board’s fiduciary duty once the directors decide on a concrete path to pursue and how it might be structured.

“I wish this hadn’t happened,” Diller said. “Now it’s over and we can all get on with our work and lives.”

Despite the setback, Liberty still could sue to block the break-up once IAC unveils its spin-off plan. At the same time, if both sides want to end their dispute quickly, an option could be to swap assets.

Liberty CEO Greg Maffei, whose hostility toward Diller many consider to be the spark that started the feud between the IAC boss and Malone, declined to comment until he could review the decision.

After closing down 27 cents to $20.49 in regular trading yesterday, IAC shares leapt $1.31 in after-hours trading to $21.80.